The state-of-the-art center — which includes the 397-seat Patti Strickel Harrison Theatre and a 312-seat recital hall — will feature student theater, dance, opera and music productions.

“There's kind of a misconception that this was going to be (a space where) you bring in Broadway shows, kind of a moneymaker,” Mottet said. “It's not. Our goal is teaching.”

There are plans to add a grand hall that would seat more than 1,000, but that's probably years away.

Some San Antonians already routinely take in shows at the university.

Kevin Parman and his partner Thomas Nyman — big San Antonio theater boosters who created the musical “Roads Courageous” — talk up the quality of the school's theater offerings at every opportunity. They even cast three Texas State students in a workshop staging of their show.

“Every time we tell people about it, they get this look like, 'I know you wouldn't lie to me, but I can't believe it's true,'” Parman said.

To counteract that, they frequently bring groups to the shows so they can see the talent for themselves.

Some people see San Marcos as too far away to go for a show, Parman said, but “people drive to Austin to see stuff all the time.”

Until now, those who made the drive to Texas State saw shows in a building that was built for $2.1 million in 1971. That facility — a round, red-brick building that's got a lot of charm, though it's also showing its age — still will be used for classes. There's also talk of staging some experimental works there as part of the university's MFA directing program, which was launched last year.

The new building is sleek and modern, with a number of swanky touches. There are the copper hand-punched canister lights, the plush carpeting, the deep stage in the main theater and the restful blond wood in the recital hall, not to mention $373,000 in new lighting gear and other state-of-the-art tech equipment. But two spaces that won't be visible to the public really help drive home the care that went into the planning and construction of the building.

There's the gleaming, spacious scene shop tucked right behind the stage — a testament to the faculty's involvement, Mottet said, since it was not included in the original building plans. It was added after faculty and the theater department chairman made the case for its importance. (Without it, he said, sets would have been constructed elsewhere then transported to the Perform-ing Arts Center; precisely how that would happen, he said, was unclear.)

And then there are the dressing rooms, which are roomy and well-lit.

“In our other facility, we have card tables with mirrors with Christmas lights (in the dressing rooms),” Mottet said. “That tells you where we've gone and where we're going. We're long overdue. So I'm thrilled.”

Students have been using the facility since Jan. 2. The public openings — including previews of the upcoming staging of “Anything Goes,” which opens next month — were a few weeks ago.

Freshman musical theater major Jo Hogan, who graduated from San Antonio's North East School of the Arts, has taken a class in the new dance studio and is looking forward to getting a chance to perform in the theater. Having a new building raises the bar, she said: “It's going to push us all much harder. I would be afraid to get on that stage and give it less than my best.”

The upgrade will make a difference, said Troy Peters, who is the director of orchestral studies at Texas State and is also music director for Youth Orchestras of San Antonio.

“It's so exciting for the students at a high-level performing arts program to have the chance to play in a professional quality venue,” said Peters, who has been teaching at the university for about a year. “They've got a venue that is elegant and classy and also state of the art in terms of the lighting technology and things like that so that students who are onstage benefit from that experience.

“And you also have students who are learning the trade of being a stagehand or working on sets or costumes working in a professional environment with the resources they would have out in the real world — in fact, better than they might have in the real world.”

There are no ties between YOSA and Texas State beyond their shared connection to Peters. A number of YOSA alumni have gone on to study at the university, he said, and a lot of San Antonio musicians have performed as guest artists on campus.

There's also some back-and-forth between the university's theater program and San Antonio. When Playhouse San Antonio staged “Oklahoma!” a few years ago, the gorgeous corn stalks that adorned the set were loaners from Texas State, which had produced the musical a few months earlier.

And Texas State faculty have been active in Las Casas Foundation's Performing Arts Scholarship Competition, thanks to Parman, who has been heavily involved since the program began in 2009. Parman invited faculty members Kaitlin Hopkins and Jim Price to give a master class to competitors that first year, and they've returned each year to lead similar sessions.

“I couldn't think of anyone better,” he said, pointing to their professional credits as well as to their teaching ability. “They bring a high level of integrity.”

Mottet keeps track of San Antonians who attend shows on the campus. And he'd like to see more of them.